Public Not Sold on Climate Change

Many of the so-called 'elites' in government, academia, entertainment, and elsewhere are taking AGW for granted. They are quick to accept the 'scientific consensus' even though there is none.

But for those of us who have no need to impress someone else with our viewpoints, the entire hoax falls apart very quickly. The elites are baffled by our neanderthal attitudes, so they try to think of various ways to rationalize our failure to see the light. From NPR we have these thoughts:

Nearly 100 world leaders are expected to appear at the global warming talks that open Monday in Copenhagen. This is an unprecedented showing of leadership for the issue. Yet at the same time, public opinion of climate change is souring — particularly in the United States.
A recent Harris Poll, among the latest of several over the past year, shows that barely half of the American public believes that the carbon dioxide that's building up in the atmosphere could warm up our planet.
There are multiple reasons for this growing skepticism, including psychological reactions and politics. Anthony Leiserowitz of the Yale University School of Forestry puts one reason above all the rest: "First of all, it's the economy, stupid."

Now get a load of this:

Even as scientists become more confident that climate change is a serious hazard, public opinion is shifting the other way, says Kari Marie Norgaard at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash.
"This seems irrational," she says. "And in that sense, it's challenging the basic premise that we have of an enlightened, democratic, modern society."
Norgaard studied this shift in public opinion and found that as people start to feel overwhelmed by the scope of the problem, they simply turn away from the topic. It's a form of denial, she says.
"We just don't want to know about it, so we are actively distancing ourselves from it or trying to protect ourselves from it."

Actually, Kari, it is reaffirming the basic premise of an enlightened, democratic, modern society. People are thinking for themselves, rather than allowing themselves to be led around like sheep by an unthinking elite.